


Always

by attackamazon



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Emotional Infidelity, F/M, Girl Saves Boy, Kissing, Rescue Missions, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 14:56:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4791530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/attackamazon/pseuds/attackamazon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a difficult couple of years for Hawke after losing her mother and becoming the Champion of Kirkwall after the Qunari uprising, but she has finally managed to find a measure of peace through her relationship with Anders.  She loves him, but even so, the way that things ended with Fenris have always bothered her.  When she is forced to rescue Fenris from Tevinter slavers, come to recapture him for his old master, unusual circumstances throw them together once again.  Will she try to recover what was lost with her first love or will she remain true to the man she has made a life with?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always

"Message for you, messere." Bodahn announced in his customarily cheerful tone as Aenora Hawke returned home, prompting her to sigh for what felt like the hundredth time that day.  The mansion was quiet and cool in the evening – a relief and a refuge from the troublesome world outside its walls.  It was home, the only place where she could be simply herself and not Messere Hawke, Champion of Kirkwall.

"I've told you, Bodahn, you don't have to call me that. Plain old 'Nora' is just fine with me."

"Oh, I know. It's a habit you see," the dwarf confided, as he always did.  She would never break him of the habit, she knew.  He meant well, and so she let it go.  "I've put your letter on your desk, as usual. The messenger seemed anxious that you should receive it as soon as possible."

"Thank you," Nora replied.  Her eyes landed on the pale form of Sandal tinkering with his arcane implements on a bench in the corner.  He looked up at her, his broad, thick features brightening a little.  The boy was simple, usually entirely focused on a world of his own, but he was no trouble – quite useful, in fact – and seemed content with his life in her house.  She tried to treat both of them kindly.

“Enchantment?” he queried hopefully.

“Not tonight, Sandal.  Maybe tomorrow,” she told him and glanced around at Bodahn. "Have you seen Anders today?"

"I believe he is upstairs writing one of his thingummies."

"Not  _another_  manifesto," she groaned, but good-naturedly.  Anders had been revising his stance on the plight of the mages over and over again ever since she had known him, though his determination had become more fervent lately.  Her own thoughts on the subject were complicated, and she tried to steer clear of the issue as much as possible in order to avoid an argument, but he would insist on leaving copies of his writing around the house where she might find them.  Nora excused herself to go and find out what her resident mage-lover was up to. The message could wait that long, at least.

They had been together for almost a year now, her and Anders.  It had been a year since she had invited him into her heart, her bed, and then her house, though they had been friends for much longer.  After the horror of her mother’s death, it had been good for her to have someone around to make the house seem less empty and – well , it had just been good to have someone there who cared. That was Anders' specialty, caring. They were not exactly married, not that that bothered her.  Not that it really mattered. When - like today - she was feeling piqued, she liked to imagine what it would take to get him up in front of a Chantry cleric. He would probably start an argument with the Mother about the "plight of the mages" in the middle of the service anyway.

She chided herself for that uncharitable thought as she ascended the stairs. He was right, after all. It was wrong for mages to be kept as veritable prisoners and slaves in their Circle towers. Poor Bethany was a perfect example of that, pent up in the Gallows with Tranquility an ever present threat. Something needed to be done. It was just that she could see the other side of it as well.  Magic was dangerous.  A possessed mage could kill hundreds of people.  The Templars, she knew from her discussions with Cullen and others, were in a situation in which no one could win.  But, well, frankly, the constant  _talk_  of it all wore on her nerves sometimes.  With Anders, it was more than just a cause, it was an obsession and one that worried her for both his safety and his sanity.

There he was in their bedchamber, scratching his quill feverishly across the parchment with an expression of such concentration that he didn't even hear her approach. He would be at it for hours sometimes when he was not at his clinic. She was never sure whether this was Justice's influence or Anders' own obsessive temperament.  She would have liked to have known him before he had merged with the spirit, but what was done was done. More often than not, it was only her coaxing that got him to leave off long enough to eat or rest. Ah, well. They took care of each other in different ways.

"More Tevinter books, I see," she said, quietly, glancing at the contents of the desk as she moved up behind him and ran a hand across his shoulder.  His interest in Tevinter magic concerned her, but his magical bent was largely towards healing and so she assumed that was the focus of his research.  Anders startled for a moment, and then smiled. It was the smile that got her every time.  He was handsome enough to make her blood thrill with desire, but there was passion and compassion and love in the way he looked at her and she fell in love with him again every time that she saw it.  How could she not?

"Yes," he said, sitting back and stretching slightly. "A lot of good information in these.  I’m making progress."

"Mmm. I'm sure." She noted the weariness in his eyes, the corner of her mouth tipping up in a sympathetic expression as she squeezed his arm fondly. "I think it's about time for a break, don't you?"

"I have a lot still to cover here," he protested, but put up no fight as she took his hand and pulled him to his feet. For a moment, she stood close to him, his hand in hers, looking up into his face. He seemed so tired these days – even more driven even than when they had first met. Justice was pushing him harder, though she wasn't exactly sure why. It made her sad for him and anxious at the same time. She would never admit it to Anders, but the idea that Justice was in there as well, a fully conscious party to everything that passed between them, was more than a little unnerving at times.  He had tried to explain it to her – that he and Justice were now the same, seamlessly united – but it still felt wrong sometimes.

"It will wait," she told him, and, for no reason she could explain, she hugged him close, wrapping her arms around him as she leaned her forehead against his.  She couldn't tell whether it was for her comfort or his.  Perhaps both.

"Is something wrong?" he asked her, drawing back slightly after a moment and laying his hands on her cheeks, concerned.

"No," she said, shaking her head and trying to smile.  It wasn’t a lie, for she could think of nothing to say, but it wasn’t quite the truth either.   "No, I'm just – I think I could do with a bit of a rest, too. Huburt's fussing over the mine like a mother hen with only one egg.  The viscount always need something.  Parts of the city are still quite a mess even this many months after the Qunari uprising.  I’ve just come from Merrill’s, trying to talk her out of this magic mirror project she’s working on. No rest for a weary Champion. You know what that's like."

"I do know," Anders replied, with a short laugh. His eyes became earnest again as he ran a hand, gently, up her neck and into her hair, "I love you."

She smiled at him by way of reply, though something about his declaration, the tone or perhaps the look in his eyes when he said the words, caused a faint shiver in the back of her mind. The force behind those words was the same force Anders put behind everything he cared about. He  _meant_  it with every fiber of his being. Why did that, one of the very things she loved about him, now strike her so uncomfortably?

"I love you, too," she said, finally, and kissed him. And it was true, she did love him. Anders was wonderful - exactly the thing she needed in her life right now.  She imagined that this must have been how her mother had felt about her father, who had also been an apostate mage.  They had been through a lot together.  It was just that . . .

No, she reminded herself. It didn't matter. When Anders had moved in, she had promised herself that she was not going to torture herself about the past anymore. She was tired.  That was why she felt strange.  She would not let a little weariness get the better of her.

"I think I know just the thing," she said, drawing him back towards the bed. Her relationship with Anders had grown comfortable over time as burning need subsided into the steady warmth of long term lovers, but his eagerness for her remained undiminished. She let the scent of his skin, the feel of his breath murmuring words of pleasure and love into her neck, the electric feeling of their hands and bodies intertwined, push everything else out of her mind.

When it was finished, she curled against him, closing her eyes as his fingers sleepily traced the curve of her back.

"Can I keep you?" she murmured against his chest, the private joke between them. She had once teased him with that question as if he were one of the stray cats he doted on, and it had now become a part of their pattern – the simple reinforcement of the bond between them.

"Always," he murmured back, and she let herself doze off content.

~~0~~

"Anything I can do for you, Miss Nora?" Bodahn asked, when she descended the stairs the following morning, feeling groggy and disoriented.

She had slept restlessly towards morning and woken up to an empty bed, as Anders had risen earlier than usual to check on his patients. It happened now and then, when he was particularly swamped with work at the clinic, but still it left her in a strange mood.  _An empty spot in the bed, a troubled face illuminated by the firelight under a shock of white hair.  S_ he shook her head sharply and blinked.

"What?"

"Are you feeling under the weather today? Should I send for Master Anders?"

"No," she said, regaining her composure, and straightening.  "No, I'm fine, Bodahn. Just a little slow to get started this morning."

"I'll have your tea brought out for you, then," the dwarf replied, kindly, and left her in the great room with only Sandal, still completely absorbed in tinkering with some of his arcane toys nearby, an occasional muttered "Enchantment!" for punctuation. Sometimes she envied the simplicity of his world, his ability to take immense pleasure from small things.

Glancing at her writing desk, the nerve center of her household, it occurred to her that she had never read the letter that had been brought for her yesterday.  Needing something to focus her mind to, she picked it up and flicked the seal open. It was probably another solicitation to invest in something or other, which she could respond to the way she had responded to all the others. By deftly tossing it into the fireplace.

She frowned as she recognized the familiar scrawl long before she started reading. Meeran. It had been quite awhile since she had seen or heard from the mercenary. She was no longer a refugee struggling for work and survival in Lowtown, but she had not forgotten that he had given her an in to the city and thrown jobs her way when she had needed them.  So, she occasionally did the same now that she had made good. The work had not been to her liking, but he’d been a fair boss and he was a useful acquaintance to have. Still, she couldn't think of what he would be writing her about now.

The message was brief and to the point. As the implications of the words dawned on her, her eyes widened in sudden panic and, in one fell movement, she dropped the note on the desk and pounded upstairs as if half the demons in the Fade were after her.

~~0~~

"Fenris!"

Her call rebounded around the foyer of the abandoned mansion that was the former slave's home, the echo sounding fearful even to her own ears as she forged deeper into the shadowy, dilapidated house.

"Easy, Hawke," Varric soothed, but Nora was not listening. She made a bee-line for the stairs that led up to the master bedchamber, taking them two at a time. Empty.  The ashes in the fireplace were cold.

"Fenris?" she called as she quickly checked each of the other rooms, to no avail. No one was there. It was hard to tell amid the clutter, but it looked like no one had been there in several days. Her heart pounded in her chest and she backed against a wall and closed her eyes trying to still her breathing.  _Calm down. He's probably out somewhere.  Meeran must be mistaken._

"Maker's breath,” she cursed under her breath, pounding the wall with a fist.  She should have read the letter last night.  She should have been here sooner.  Fenris had kept his distance since the awful night that he had fled her bedchamber and their relationship – such as it was – had imploded.  But, she should have been the one to check up on him now and then.  He had few enough people to care about him.  She should have been the one to try to make it right.  Varric stepped into the room, the dwarf’s expression concerned.

"Looks like your tip was right, Hawke," he told her gesturing at the wooden table to one side. "He's not here. There's a half-eaten meal set out.  Nothing’s disturbed. Looks to me like he left the room planning to come back, but never made it."

"We've got to find him,” Nora insisted, shaking her head, guilt assailing her.

"I know," her friend replied and then added, gently, "Listen, I'll work some of my contacts. You go track down the others. Meet at the Hanged Man before sundown. If he's in the city, we'll find him.  Don’t worry, Hawke."

Nora swallowed, nodding, trying to let Varric’s optimism bolster her confidence.  She turned, sweeping down the stairs and towards the outer door, feeling numb but focused now that there was some semblance of a plan. They  _had_  to find Fenris. If something had happened to him . . .

She gritted her teeth and broke into a jog, her armor clanking with every step as she hurried through the streets. If she had to tear the entire city apart, piece by piece, she _would_ find him. That was all there was to it.

~~0~~

"Nora?" Anders exclaimed, looking up in surprise as she burst into the clinic. The impoverished denizens of Darktown and Lowtown startled and stared at her with surprise. The Champion of Kirkwall? Here?

"We have to talk," Nora told him, quietly, as soon as she was near enough.

"Can it wait? I've got patients."

"No," she insisted, and, glancing around, backed into an unoccupied corner. He followed her, looking confused and concerned.  But he was listening, and she kept her voice low. "Fenris is missing. Something's happened to him."

"Is that all?" Anders replied, his concern fading immediately.  He shook his head, "I wouldn’t worry about it.  He's probably sulking in a dark alley somewhere, brooding."

"No," she insisted, frowning.  Anders and Fenris had taken an extreme dislike to each other from the instant they had met.  Getting them to work together at all was a feat of diplomacy, but it angered her now that Anders could be so cavalier about one of their friends disappearing into thin air.  "You're not listening. Anders, there's no trace of him. He's  _gone_."

"Good riddance to bad rubbish, I'd say," the mage muttered, crossly, and then held up his hands as Nora opened her mouth to deliver a sharp reply. "I know, I know. But, sweetheart, we've barely seen him for, what, a year now? Maybe he finally decided to move on to somewhere better."

"He wouldn't do that," she replied, agitated. "He wouldn't leave without at least saying goodbye."

Anders stared at her, a suspicious and irritated expression growing on his face, and she knew immediately what he was thinking.  She blushed, looking away. She had never hidden her past involvement with the lyrium-marked elf from him or any of the others, though no one - even Isabella – ever mentioned it now. What was there to say? Her relationship with Fenris had catastrophically ended almost as quickly as it had begun and he had left her. It was over and done with. Even Anders had never pried into the details; it had always seemed enough for him that she had finally turned her attention to him instead. But, old rivalries could not be as easily quenched, and she knew her reaction to all of this was not helping.

"He would have at least told Isabella or Varric," she murmured, embarrassed, and then took a step closer to him, laying a hand on his shoulder plaintively. "Anders, I know you two don't get along, but he's still one of us. If he's in trouble, we need to help him. He's earned that much from us in the past."

When he did not reply, she swallowed, hearing her own voice hardening with determination as she told him, “I'm going to help him, whether you come or not. But I'd rather have you with me."

"Does it really mean that much to you?" Anders asked, wearily. She nodded and he sighed, "I'll get my staff."

"Thank you." She meant it, relieved. He smiled a tight-lipped _the-things-I-do-for-you_ smile and turned away to collect his things.

~~0~~

"I've got a lead," Varric said later, as he pulled up a seat at the table in the Hanged Man. His expression was serious, which worried Nora. The last time she had seen that particular expression, it was when Bartrand had turned back up.

"This should be good," Anders remarked, and she frowned at him reproachfully, aware that Isabella was watching the exchange with interest.

"A contact of mine with the Coterie has been watching a slaver operation in Darktown. Tevinters coming and going from a warehouse there day and night. Two nights ago, he noticed them dragging in what looked like an armored elf with a bag over his head. Sound familiar?"

"Tevinters . . ." Nora said, feeling her blood run cold as an awful thought occurred to her.  "Fenris' old master."

"Give the lady a prize,” Varric replied, nodding. "Question is, what do we do about it?"

"We go get him," Nora said with conviction.

"What? Just us?" Isabella scoffed.  "Why don't you get the red-haired battering ram down here with her guard rabble to do something about it?"

"Aveline's still in Orlais with Donnic." Nora replied, shaking her head. "It's already been nearly two days. Time isn't on our side. They could be putting him on a ship right now."

The pirate captain raised an eyebrow at her thoughtfully, as if just realizing something very interesting, and Nora turned her gaze back to Varric.

"You know where this place is?" she asked Varric.

"Is Knight Commander Meredeth one cleric short of a Chantry?"

"Let's go." Nora rose from her chair, unaware of Anders' darkening expression.

~~0~~

Nighttime in Darktown was not without its perils, but Aenora Hawk's name and face were known in Kirkwall and tonight her face was set in an expression of such wrathful determination that even the lyrium sellers and gang members shied away as the four friends made their way into the suppurating depths of the city.

"Alright, here's what I was thinking," Varric explained, quietly, as they approached the warehouse that his contact had indicated, stopping a good ways away. "Hawke and Isabella can stroll along in front there, while-"

But Nora was not listening and she did not stop. Her anger had been simmering since hearing about the slavers back in the Hanged Man, increasing with every step. She had killed dozens of those scum since she had arrived in Kirkwall. She had seen firsthand while helping Fenris hunt down his former master's apprentice what lengths the people who were after him would go to get their way and it made her blood boil. The thought of him recaptured - of having to relive the skin-crawling horror of it all over again – infuriated her.

The guard at the door had no idea what hit him. It seemed to him that, as he turned to see who was approaching, a sword magically appeared through his chest, accompanied by a pair of vengeful, blue eyes staring hatefully into his own. A second later, a hard fist smashed into his face and the lights went out for good.

Nora withdrew her sword, reared back, and kicked the warehouse door with as much force as she could muster, splintering it inwards off its hinges.

"Or we could do that," Varric said. "That works, too."

~~0~~

They took the warehouse room by room. The further they went with no sign of Fenris, the more frenzied Nora became. She carved her way through the slavers as if she was reaping wheat back in Lothering. Varric took an arrow dangerously in the thigh, but she barely noticed. Anders would deal with it. Her mind was focused on a single goal.  _I will get him out of here alive._  She repeated the phrase like a mantra, over and over again, as if willing them to be true would make it so.

Finally, she found him. The room was not large, but much longer than it was wide. At the back, slumped across several crates, was Fenris. And standing over him, a robed Tevinter with an ugly, frightened expression on his face. She started towards him, grimly, and he stepped back, a crackle of electric energy sweeping over his outstretched hand.

"Come closer, and I'll kill him." The mage warned, but Hawke kept coming, her narrowed eyes fixated on his wide ones. She could feel the terror radiating off of him, as if her own body were absorbing it, using it to fuel her own anger.

"I mean it!"

The man's voice was shrill with fear, but it was already too late for him. A quick lunge forward, accompanied by a roar of righteous wrath sent him tumbling backwards over himself. That was all she needed to finish it.

Rising over the corpse of the mage, his sightless eyes still staring in pained reproach, she hurried over to her friend and knelt down, cold fear suddenly prickling up her spine to think that she was too late.

Someone had bound Fenris’ hands cruelly behind him. Bloody chafe marks were in evidence, as was a large gash on his temple, dried blood caking the unruly strands of his pale hair. His eyes were closed and, for an awful moment, she was certain he was dead. As she laid a gauntleted hand gently on his shoulder, though, she felt him stir groggily. He had never liked being touched.

"Hawke?" he slurred, his green eyes opening to slits and peering up at her, "I didn't think you'd come."

"I always do," she replied, her words coming out in an exhale of pure relief. "You know that."

At that moment, Isabella burst into the room with Anders, supporting a limping Varric, in tow.

"He's alive," she told them.

"Well, that's good, isn't it?" said Isabella, cheerfully, before noticing the dead mage nearby.  "Oooh, what's this?"

"Will wonders never cease," Anders remarked, tightly, as he helped Varric onto a barrel nearby. The arrow had been snapped off above the head, but it would still need to be dug out later and she knew from experience how badly that could hurt. She could see her friend was in pain, and made a mental note to buy Varric a pint or two when this was all over with. Fenris was staring at her, her gaze fuzzy and confused.  Anders walked over to checked him for injuries.

"How do you feel?" the healer mage asked, and then snapped his fingers in front of Fenris' glazed expression. "Hello, over here if you, please. How do you feel? Hurt anywhere?"

"Not as much as you will, mage, if you snap your fingers at me again," The elf growled, though it took him a couple second longer than normal to trail his gaze over to on Anders.

"He's fine," Anders announced, dryly, stepping back. "They probably drugged him to keep him quiet. I can't say that I blame them."

"Let's get out of here," Nora suggested, diplomatically, as she slashed through the bonds at Fenris' wrists and ankles, flung his arm around her shoulder, and helped him to his feet. He was unsteady, but she decided he could walk with her help.

"Look at this!" Isabella exclaimed, holding up a belt of filigreed golden links, "Can I have it?"

~~0~~

"I'm going to take Varric to the clinic. I'm going to need more than magic to get this arrowhead out," Anders said, once they were outside. Nora shifted her arms around Fenris into a more comfortable position, her brain crackling with all sorts of strange and conflicting sensations. There was the high of battle mingled with the utter relief that her friend was safe.  There was concern mixed with the unexpectedly intoxicating feeling of Fenris' body against hers again. The last time that had happened . . .

She shook her head to clear it.  "I'll get Fenris back to Hightown.”

"Let Isabella take him." Anders suggested, frowning, and Hawke glanced at the pirate captain, who was admiring her new bauble a few feet away.

"Take Isabella with you. The streets are dangerous this time of night and you’ve got your hands full with Varric. I can handle myself. I'd rather know that you all were safe. She has to go back to the Hanged Man later anyway. She can walk Varric back."

He stared at her uncertainly for a moment and then made a gesture of acquiescence. With a prickling glare at Fenris, he reached out and brushed his hand across her shoulder, gently.

"I'll see you at home," he said, and then turned, helping Varric navigate the uneven ground and stairs of Darktown.

"Let's get you back home," she said to Fenris. Was it her imagination that his hand curled around her neck with feeling, rather than simply for support? She pressed on. They had a long walk and she wanted him home and safe before any of the local thugs decided to take an interest.

~~0~~

"Never a dull time knowing you, Hawke," Fenris mumbled as they crested the stairs and she helped him into his room. The exertion of the walk had seemed to rouse him from the effects of the drug a little bit, but he was still not quite himself and not quite steady on his feet.

"I could say the same thing about you," she shot back, settling him on to the decaying four-poster that was his bed. He sat upright for a moment before flopping over to the side.  Nora looked around her.  "It's freezing in here. I'll bank up the fire. I've saved your life once tonight already, we can't have you freezing after all that work, now can we?"

He laughed, a more unrestrained laugh than she had heard from him in a very long time, and she went downstairs to hunt for some logs to throw on the fire. It seemed that he had been burning the remnants of damaged furniture and old storage crates for some time; his supply was low. She would have to talk to Bodahn about having some firewood delivered. Still, she rounded up the best pieces of wood she could find and carried them back up to his room.

Fenris was laying, nearly spread eagle on the bed where she had left him, but he roused and propped himself shakily up on one arm to watch her as she set about building the fire back up.  Flint and tinder sparked a flame onto a mat of wispy shavings, and she fed the fire into a small blaze.

"Did I ever tell you," Fenris asked, his deep voice slurred slightly as if he were drunk, "that you're a beautiful woman, Hawke?"

"Oh, Maker preserve me," she groaned, theatrically, but felt something small and hidden twist inside of her. A cruel reward for a night's rescue.

"Especially when you're angry," he continued.

"If you keep that up, I'll be radiant before long," she growled and stood, wiping the ash off her hands, looking at him.  _Maker_ , she thought, as she surveyed him stretched out on the bed and the unwanted ghosts of a life that could have been gripped at her heart again,  _he always was a handsome man_.

"That should keep you for tonight," she told him, firmly. "Can I get you anything? Water?"

"Wine," he declared, and she crossed her arms, stubbornly.

"Don't try me, elf." She sighed, moving towards the bed. "Let's get your boots off anyway."

She pulled at his leathers, working them off despite the dust and sweat of several day's build up, and dropped them beside the bed. He winced a little, painfully, and she checked him over with her eyes, concerned.

"Are you sure you're alright?" she asked him, moving up to sit on the edge of the bed. She peered at his face, brushing his hair back from the gash on his forehead. "That cut looks nasty. You should go get Anders to look at it tomorrow."

"I'm fine," he insisted, but when she started to rise, saying she would drop in on him tomorrow, he took her hand firmly. It was such an uncharacteristic move for him that she was stunned into immobility for a moment. He leaned up towards her, and she felt her breath stop in her throat. Her heart pounded like a war drum against her ribs at the feel of his bare skin on hers for the first time since their night together.

"Thank you, Hawke. For everything," he told her, and then he kissed her.

He kissed her as simply and easily as if a year and some months had not intervened between the last time and now. He kissed her, raking his fingers into her hair and flaming the painful, aching memories of her old feelings into life once more. Before she could stop herself, her arms were around him and she was kissing him back, devouring his touch, his presence, like a starving woman. But as she felt his hands reach for the straps of her breastplate - as he drew back to press his lips to the pulse at her neck, the heat of them like a branding iron on her flesh - she pulled away, gasping for breath, and stood.

There was a roaring, eternal silence for a moment where neither of them moved. She could not look at him. Her body was screaming at her for his touch again, for release, but her mind was screaming, too, propelling her way. It would be wrong. In so many ways, it would be wrong. But she wanted it so much that it frightened her.

"I have to go," she faltered, finally.

"Stay," he told her, reaching for her unsteadily, but she stepped back out of his reach. She knew if he touched her she would not be able to resist again.

"You're not well," she retorted and turned, quaking, so he could not see the raw need in her face. She strode towards the door and did not stop to listen to anything he might say to pull her back to him. "I'll come check on you tomorrow."

Outside of the mansion, she broke into a run and did not stop until she reached her home, sweating and breathless despite the cool night air. But it was an hour or more, huddled in the dark alcove of her doorstep, before she could bring herself to go inside.

~~0~~

"You're back late," Anders remarked from where he sat at his desk, as she entered their room. There was a tense note in his voice.  He didn't look at her. A bad sign.

"The fire had gone out," she explained, apologetically. "I banked it up for him before I left."

He said nothing, but she could hear his quill scratching accusingly at her in the silence.  She winced and considered just letting him be tonight, to burn off whatever it was that had displeased him in research. But it was more than she could bear tonight to have him angry at her. The kiss meant nothing. It had surprised her.  She had stopped it before anything else could happen.  If Fenris had not been drugged, it would never have happened to begin with. He would likely be repulsed by the whole affair in the morning when he was back in his right mind. If he even remembered it - though if the Maker was merciful, he would not. She stepped towards Anders and laid a hand on his shoulder. He flinched away and that broke her heart, but she could do nothing but stumble on.

"Thank you," she told him, awkwardly, "for coming with me tonight. I know you would rather not have come and you did it for me. I want you to know that I appreciate it."

"And Fenris? Does he appreciate it?"

She had rarely seen him this angry. He nearly spat the name of ex-slave, with the same loathing he normally reserved only for templars.

"It's not for me to say, but I would suppose so."

Anders whirled on her at that moment, standing, and for just an instant she thought she saw the blue flash of Justice in his eyes, but it could only have been an illusion.

"Tell me the truth," he demanded, bitterly. "Don't toy with me like this."

She stared at him for a long moment, not trusting her voice and then shook her head.

"Anders, there's nothing to tell," she told him, firmly, and then - swallowing the guilt for the small lie she was about to tell – she continued, "I walked Fenris home. I made sure he was safe for the night. And I came home to you. That’s all."

He glared at her for a long moment, as if not sure whether to believe her, and then she saw his expression crumpled slightly before he looked away.

"I'm sorry," he stammered. "I know that you and he -”

She stepped forward and kissed him.  She was damnable cad for kissing her lover with the same lips she had just nearly betrayed him with, but she would ask the Maker's forgiveness later.  She would not hurt Anders because of a brief moment of indiscretion that had led to nothing and would lead to nothing. She summoned up every ounce of feeling she could muster that was not already raw from abuse tonight, and poured it into him. When she drew back, she pressed her hands to his unshaven cheeks and look him dead in the eyes.

"I love  _you_ ," she said, forcing the truth of those words out despite the distant nagging jeer in the back of her mind for what might have been, what  _could_  have been if she had just stayed a moment longer.

He embraced her with fierce relief, almost too hard, but she did not stop him.

"I know.  I love you, too.”  He stroked her hair, kissing her gently again, "It’s just that seeing you with him tonight – and I know how he looks at you sometimes when he thinks neither of us are paying attention."

"I understand, love," she soothed, softly, trying not to hate herself for the jumble of images – her and Anders, her and Fenris – swirling through her mind.

"I shouldn’t have doubted you," he told her and smiled at her, that dopy, eager smile of his that melted her heart every time. "I promise, it won't happen again."

"Let's go to bed," she suggested. It was late. They were both exhausted. And they had both had enough for one night. She took his hand and led him towards the bed, helping him off with the many buckles of his coat and pulling her own tired and dusty tunic and breeches off. She would worry about washing up and tending to her bruises and abrasions in the morning.

His body felt warm and familiar as she settled under the covers against him, curling into him for comfort. There would be nothing more than sleep tonight, but that was fine. All she wanted was to sleep and put it all behind her – to forget, again, the painful, unquenchable desire that Fenris had awakened in her all those years ago and once again tonight.  She was with Anders now, and she loved him.  What might have been no longer mattered, and that was how it should be.

"Can I keep you?" her lover murmured into her ear, as he blew out the candle and pulled her against him, wrapping his arm around her waist.

"Always," she said into the darkness, lacing her fingers into his and meaning it.


End file.
